Twitter Expands In-Line Video Viewing

Twitter has expanded its inline video feature to a new set of users – Including YouTube vlogger and king of the nerdfighters Hank Green.

The social media network has long used its Twitter Cards feature to embed video from popular websites like YouTube and Vimeo directly into user’s timelines. Now, for their latest video experiment, they have given a small number of influential users the ability to upload up to 30-seconds of video in the same way they would upload an image, and share it with their followers directly on their timeline.

Advertisers in Twitter’s Amplify advertising program have had access to inline video for months; however, this is the first time users have have been allowed to upload video to Twitter without paying for the privilege.

Check out Hank Green’s tweet, including a twitter-hosted video, below:

It’s clear that the feature is far from ready for prime time, using abnormally high video bit rates and a video player with a limited features, so ‘normal’ users like you or I aren’t going to get to play with this for a long time. But it seems like a natural enhancement to the service that perfectly compliments how users already interact with the service.

It also provides a more organic alternative to some of their other video experiments; like hashtag video sharing, which automatically embeds a video into all tweets that contain a certain hashtag. While early rumors suggested the feature would roll out to all users that ‘start’ a hashtag, it’s clear that it’s reserved only for major advertisers like Universal Pictures, who were able to automatically embed the trailer for Seth MacFarlane’s latest movie ‘A Million Ways to Die in the West’ after ‘buying’ the hashtag #AMillionWaysToDie.

The social media network has been experimenting with new ways to integrate video into their platform for years. But now, following the enormous success of their Vine service, video has clearly become a major priority for the company.

“Video will begin to feel like a native experience,” Kevin Weil, Twitter’s VP of product for revenue told the New York Times. “We’re making it easier for people to do what they want to do.”